Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream.I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream.Ah child of countless trees, ah child of boundless seas.What are you, what are you meant to be?Speaks his name for you were born to me,Born to me, Cassidy.Lost now on the country miles in his Cadillac.I can tell by the way you smile he is rolling back.Come wash the nighttime clean, come grow the scorched ground green.Blow the horn, tap the tambourine.Close the gap on the dark years in between.You and me, Cassidy.Quick beats in an icy heart, catch colt draws a coffin cart,There he goes and now here she starts, hear her cry.Flight of the seabirds,Scattered like lost words,Wheel to the storm and fly.Fare thee well now, let your life proceed by it's own design.Nothing to tell now, let the words be yours, I'm done with mine.Fare thee well now, let your life proceed by it's own design.Nothing to tell now, let the words be yours, I'm done with mine.

Possibly my favorite song by the Grateful Dead. I love this song so much!! Anyone else?

Quote:i love that song! im pretty sure that its about neil cassidy and all his crazy adventures. anyone know for sure?

It's about the birth of Cassidy Law. Cassidy and her mother Eileen are a huge part of the Dead family. They run the GD office in California. Cassidy was born at Weir's house in the 70's and Barlow was visiting. Cassidy and her mom are also the liason between the band and the deadheads. I owe them much thanks for my Red Rocks tickets and a bunch of other favors over the years. They really are great people.

Even though I know Cassidy, whenever I hear the song I think of Neal. Barlow did a fine job at leaving the lyrics open enough for this interpritation. In fact I think that part of the lyrics are about Neal."Lost now on the country mile in his Cadillac, I can tell by the way you smiled he's rolling back" Sounds like Neal to me.

--------------------Some rise
Some fall
Some climb
To get to Terrapin!!!

The song was written about Neil Cassady I always believed, John Barlow was very moved by Neil. He wrote: "As far as I could tell Cassady never slept, he tossed back hearts of Mexican Dexedrine by the shot sized bottle, grinned, crackled and jammed on into the night."

--------------------The bus came by and I got on that's when it all began!

"Weir's housemate Eileen Law was giving birth to her daughter. She had already chosen the name Cassidy from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid because it worked well for a boy or girl. The homonym made Barlow think of Neal Cassidy who had been gone for 2 years."-Dennis Mcknally

Barlow also say's of the song "it's the only one i'm proud of"

Some of the lyrics are obviouslly about the birth of Cassidy and other's about the life of Neal. He did a very good job of mixing them up to create a beautiful song.

--------------------Some rise
Some fall
Some climb
To get to Terrapin!!!

I agree. That's the beauty of art it can be about many things at once...

So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all the raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars?ll be out, and don?t you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds of the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what?s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarity, I even think of Old Dean Moriarity the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarity.

Cassidy is truly a beautiful song. I've actually had the pleasure of meeting John Barlow several times because I went to high school with one of his daughters, Leah. I could never get him to discuss the details of Cassidy with me though.

I agree. That's the beauty of art it can be about many things at once...

Thats what is so great about Dead lyrics(and others). There so open and universal that people can derive there own meaning from them. It's great the way Hunter doesn't usually discuss the meaning of his songs. He realizes that in doing so he would take away meaning for some folks. He doesn't want to ruin the personal meaning that we have for those tunes by revealing what he meant, because it might be different from our interpritation. Dylan is the same way.A great song is like a great painting. It touches folks on lot's of different levels.The meaning can be different from person to person and no one person is right.When we are left with just the art we can be moved and hold it dear as if it were made for ourselves.

--------------------Some rise
Some fall
Some climb
To get to Terrapin!!!

heard barlow tell a story on the radio once about how he met a love of his life at a celebrity roast of steve jobs in nevada somewhere. barlow cofounded the electronic frontier foundation, btw. she was attending the psychiatric convention across the hall. their eyes met. they fell in love. turns out she lived in the same apartment building, one floor up from him back in ny. long story short, she died a short time later of natural causes on a flight from la to ny. barlow was devastated and spent the next few years logging thousands of hours of flight time travelling unnessesarily he confessed, on business and such. reveals how he may have been trying somehow to get back to her. lots of other details there in a great story. great storyteller.

papaver - God I love that paragraph man. On the Road, what a book. I am reading the Dharma Bums now.

"There he goes and now here she starts, hear her cry.Flight of the seabirds,Scattered like lost words,"

- I was kind of thinking that this could be about Neal and the way he loved so many women and left them(like in On The Road)

Guys, I have to admit, I barely know shit about the Dead. I WANT to though. I read the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test and On the Road, and Neal Cassady seems like the most amazing soul to ever walk this earth. My friend just loaned me "A Long Strange Trip" by Dennis McNally. Is it good?? I'm going to a Dead show on June 29th, along with Willie Nelson and Moe.!!! I CAN'T wait! I've got plenty of LSD and mushies to eat while I'm there all day and night. I'm looking forward to it!!